Sibling rivalry for a gong

Usually the awards season starts here in Venice, where Atonement began its march to the Baftas if not the Oscars in 2007. But this year the only possible Oscar potential seems to rest on a pair of performances in Jonathan Demme's flawed but powerful Rachel Getting Married, starring Anne Hathaway and Rosemarie DeWitt, lately seen in TV's Mad Men. Hathaway and DeWitt spark perfectly as squabbling siblings, and acting nominations seem assured come the year-end. At the press conference after, however, Hathaway, 25, sidestepped any talk of trophies. 'If I started being concerned about buzz now I'd never make it through Christmas,' she said. 'I couldn't be happier with this film, no matter what happens to it - if it sinks at the box office, or if it doesn't ever win an award.'

Hathaway and Demme arrived slightly late for the after-party but Hathaway was apparently thrilled by what she'd seen, having shot so much footage - much of it improvised - that the first assemblage ran to four hours. After sitting politely at the only table with chairs in the room, director and star were heard making polite noises about feeling like 'being in a goldfish bowl' and decamped to Harry's Bar for their first square meal of the day.

Rourke talk

The Rachel Getting Married party was only the second big party to be held in Venice and, though it was pretty quiet, it attracted one of the few Hollywood stars on the Lido this year - Mickey Rourke, who's here with The Wrestler, in which he gave a fantastic performance. 'I threw my career away 15 years ago... It's almost better to never have achieved nothing than to be a hasbeen. It's such a small feeling. And you have no one to blame but yourself, he said at the press conference. Rourke had arrived with co-star Evan Rachel Wood, and was on very good and friendly form: when I declared myself a fan, Rourke beamed, 'Thanks, man, I need all the help I can get!' He hadn't seen the film yet but surprised me by saying that he never sees anything he's just finished. 'I'll leave it maybe two or three years,' he added. However Rourke recalled the strong sex scene in the film, which came as news to Wood, who seemed totally unaware. 'Oh, yeah, he's takin' her from behind,' Rourke grinned. The little bucking motion he did at the same time is still burned on my memory.

War, straight up

One thing in short supply this year is films about Iraq, but on Wednesday they gave us The Hurt Locker by cult director Kathryn Bigelow about a bomb disposal team in Baghdad. Unusually, there's no liberal hand-wringing - it's just a very well-made war-is-hell movie. 'I think there's a great tragedy to all wars,' said Bigelow, 'and this war is no exception. But at the same time my interest was to give this conflict a human face and give the audience a chance to experience what a soldier experiences, based on first-hand observation.'

Take that, Toronto

The festival wrapped on Saturday with the not-greatly-anticipated Orfeo 9, the tin hat on a dreadful 10 days. Festival director Marco Muller was on bullish form at a press lunch, however, announcing that The Hurt Locker, The Wrestler and Rachel Getting Married had been timed to clash with rival festival Toronto, which kicked off last week. However, the real bombshell was dropped when Muller announced his intention to move the entire festival to September, thereby scrapping the gentleman's agreement that kept the two festivals separate.